RAQQA, Syria – Drone footage from the northern Syrian city of Raqqa shows the extent of devastation caused by weeks of fighting between Kurdish-led forces and the Islamic State group. Footage from Thursday shows the bombed-out shells of buildings and heaps of concrete slabs lay piled on streets littered with destroyed cars. Entire neighborhoods are seen turned to rubble, with little sign of civilian life. The U.S.-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces announced they have driven Islamic State group militants out of the city after weeks of fighting. The spokesman for the coalition, Col. Ryan Dillon, tweeted on Thursday that the SDF has cleared 98 percent of the city, adding that some militants remain holed up in a small pocket east of the city's athletic stadium.

But first, Baidu aims to complete a fully self-driving bus--running on a designated route--with a Chinese bus maker by next year. Baidu is hoping its open-source software is more appealing to car makers wary of joining with Waymo, the driverless-car unit of Google parent Alphabet Inc. GOOGL -1.08% Mr. Li said he pitches car makers that Apollo will give them more control of their data and user experience than a closed system like Waymo's. "You have much better control over your destiny," he said. Most industry experts agree, however, that Waymo has the most advanced self-driving technology, which it began developing in 2009.

The programme has been created based on the experience of leading American and European universities, such as Stanford University (U.S.) and EPFL (Switzerland). Also taken into consideration when creating the faculty was the School of Data Analysis, which is one of the strongest postgraduate schools in the field of computer science in Russia. In the faculty, learning is based on practice and projects. National Research University - Higher School of Economics (HSE) is one of the top research universities in Russia. Established in 1992 to promote new research and teaching in economics and related disciplines, it now offers programs at all levels of university education across an extraordinary range of fields of study including business, sociology, cultural studies, philosophy, political science, international relations, law, Asian studies, media and communications, IT, mathematics, engineering, and more.

MONTREAL--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Element AI, an artificial intelligence company that delivers groundbreaking AI solutions, today announced it has joined the Partnership on AI (PAI) to design best practices and principles that will promote fairness, safety, transparency, and positive social impact. PAI's goals are to study and formulate best practices on the development, testing, and fielding of AI technologies while advancing the public's understanding of AI. Its mission is to serve as an open platform for discussion and engagement about AI and its influences on people and society as well as identifying and fostering aspirational efforts in AI for socially beneficial purposes. Amazon, Apple, Google/DeepMind, Facebook, IBM and Microsoft founded the partnership to bring different, valuable perspectives to its efforts through the inclusion of innovative companies like Element AI. According to a statement released by the Partnership on AI, "We actively designed the Partnership on AI to bring together a diverse range of voices from for-profit and non-profit, all of whom share our belief in the tenets and are committed to collaboration and open dialogue on the many opportunities and rising challenges around AI." In addition to Element AI, another world renown company to join PAI is Element AI Series A investor NVIDIA along with other prestigious companies including: Accenture, Association for Computer Machinery, AI Now, Amnesty International, Article 19, Berkeley CHAI, doteveryone, Fraunhofer IAO, Future of Life Institute, Hastings Center at Yale University, Hong Kong University Electronic & Computer Engineering, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Omidyar Network, Oxford Internet Institute and Tufts HRI Lab.

Space luminaries such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have talked about building bases on the Moon to let humans live, work and play on the lunar surface. A new discovery, however, may bring that dream to reality sooner than realized. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has discovered an enormous cave under the lunar surface, something it calls a "very significant" discovery, due to its value for both science and human expansion into space. The discovery was made by Japan's Selenological and Engineering Explorer (Selene) probe and shows a 50 kilometer (31 miles) "lava tube" underground, alongside a lava flow river "rille" on the Marius Hills of the Moon. JAXA used radio waves to confirm the existence of the cave after examining the hole.

Dr. Werner Vogels, Chief Technology Officer at Amazon.com, made his first regional keynote speech at GITEX Technology Week today. Speaking on how an experimental mindset helps drive continuous innovation on a worldwide scale, he highlighted how digital acceleration can create new opportunities and extolled entrepreneurs to work on things that truly differentiate their businesses. At this afternoon's keynote, Dr. Vogels said that the most disruptive businesses in the Middle East are powered in the cloud. Dr. Vogels expressed his excitement to announce that the company is building a presence in the Middle East, which will allow it to harness the power of technology to create a rich featured infrastructure platform for startups and big businesses in the region. Meanwhile, Mike Sutcliff, Group Chief Executive of Accenture Digital at his keynote address highlighted the role technology will play across the private and government sectors.

Russia has a new battle suit that seems to be visually inspired by Star Wars's Imperial Shadow Stormtroopers. While Russia's version likely doesn't come with a cloaking device, the high-tech armor does have a few tricks up its sleeves, including nuclear blast resistant tech. The suit was developed by Rostec and is called the Ratnik-3. The latest upgrade to the new armor includes a reportedly nuclear blast resistant watch. According to a statement released by the press office, the Chief Designer for the Life Support System of the Soldier Combat Outfit at the Central Scientific Research Institute for Precision Machine Engineering, Oleg Faustov, says "The watch, which we have included in the Ratnik outfit, retains its properties upon the impact of radiation and electromagnetic impulses, for example, upon a nuclear blast."

"The new government will catapult the UAE into its prosperous centenary which aims for fostering knowledge, science and research as well as engaging the youth in the leadership of the nation," Shaikh Mohammad said. Shaikh Mohammad tweeted that a new shake-up came after the government's recent annual meetings and the launch of the UAE Centennial Plan 2071. The reshuffle was approved by President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan and came after consultation with "my brother [His Highness Shaikh] Mohammad Bin Zayed [Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces]," Shaikh Mohammad said. The new government -- the 13th in the UAE's history -- sees the appointment of Omar Bin Sultan Al Olama, 27, as the State Minister for Artificial Intelligence. "We want the UAE to become the world's most prepared country for artificial intelligence," Shaikh Mohammad said.

Google's artificial intelligence group, DeepMind, has unveiled the latest incarnation of its Go-playing program, AlphaGo – an AI so powerful that it derived thousands of years of human knowledge of the game before inventing better moves of its own, all in the space of three days. Named AlphaGo Zero, the AI program has been hailed as a major advance because it mastered the ancient Chinese board game from scratch, and with no human help beyond being told the rules. In games against the 2015 version, which famously beat Lee Sedol, the South Korean grandmaster, in the following year, AlphaGo Zero won 100 to 0. The feat marks a milestone on the road to general-purpose AIs that can do more than thrash humans at board games. Because AlphaGo Zero learns on its own from a blank slate, its talents can now be turned to a host of real-world problems. At DeepMind, which is based in London, AlphaGo Zero is working out how proteins fold, a massive scientific challenge that could give drug discovery a sorely needed shot in the arm.

IN 2016 Lee Sedol, one of the world's best players of Go, lost a match in Seoul to a computer program called AlphaGo by four games to one. It was a big event, both in the history of Go and in the history of artificial intelligence (AI). Go occupies roughly the same place in the culture of China, Korea and Japan as chess does in the West. After its victory over Mr Lee, AlphaGo beat dozens of renowned human players in a series of anonymous games played online, before re-emerging in May to face Ke Jie, the game's best player, in Wuzhen, China. Mr Ke fared no better than Mr Lee, losing to the computer 3-0.